![Sample our Language & Literature journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5941/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Language-Literature.jpg"})
ABSTRACT
Despite the growing importance of Chinese in many contexts, the ideological orientations towards the Chinese language and its speakers embedded in the wider socio-political context remain under-researched. This study intends to bridge this gap by interpreting media representations of ‘Chinese’ in Irish print media. A combination of corpus linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis was employed in the study. Informed by Ruíz’s (Citation1984) metaphorical representations of language, 85 valid news articles retrieved from the major Irish newspapers (2010-2018) were analysed. The results of analysis suggest that Irish media discourse focuses on highlighting the instrumental value of the Chinese language, promoting standard Chinese and marginalizing the Irish Chinese diaspora community. It can be argued that a community-oriented approach to promoting the learning and teaching of Chinese may help create a positive synergy between heritage language maintenance and recognition of the Chinese language as a valuable resource. This study will have implications for the wider discussion of language ideology and language planning with regard to modern language learning and heritage language maintenance.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the two anonymous reviewers for their constructive comments and suggestions. Yuying Liu would like to acknowledge the valuable insights from Professor Helen Kelly-Holmes. Also, thanks to Dr Declan O’Donnell for your timely and honest feedback.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes on contributors
Yuying Liu is an assistant professor in the Department of Languages & Intercultural Studies, Heriot-Watt University, UK. Her areas of interest and research are in the multilingualism, language policy, and language teaching methodologies.
Xuesong (Andy) Gao is an associate professor in the School of Education, the University of New South Wales, Australia. His research interests include language learner autonomy, language education policy, and language teacher education.